Ruth Herne - Yuletide Hearts

“I’m on it.”

They spent the first hour setting up ladders and scaffolding, then split into two groups, checking for damage.

“We’ve got a problem here,” Callie called out mid-morning as Matt passed by below. He clambered up the ladder, saw what she’d uncovered, and grimaced. “We’ll have to take this section back down to the rafters.”

“I’m on it.”

She’d been amazing and quick, working hard and long beside the men without a break, and in her hooded sweatshirt and loose-fit blue jeans, no one would even know she was a girl.

So why couldn’t Matt get it off his mind? Focus, dude. “You really have to go to the restaurant tomorrow? No chance of getting someone to cover you?”

Callie looked up. Had he tempted her? Heaven knows he tried. She shook her head. “Sorry, can’t be helped. But I’ll see if one of the girls wants to pick up my shifts next week because working here pays better than waiting on the lunch crowd at the Olympus.”

“If you can do that, lunch is on me every day next week.”

“For all of us or just the pretty girl?” Tommy wondered out loud.

“Everyone.” Matt shot Tommy a quick grin of appreciation as he jerked a thumb in Callie’s direction. “Although she’s easier on the eyes than the rest of you lugs.” He headed back toward the ladder, the crew’s work ethic easing his concerns. “I’ve got a friend who works at the Tops deli in Wellsville. She can hook us up with some pretty good eats.”

Tommy exchanged a grin with Buck. “I had a few of those friends back in the day.”

Matt laughed and discovered it felt good to laugh with a crew like this, as unlikely as they appeared. A gray truck turned into Cobbled Creek Lane, the town emblem emblazoned on the cab doors. Matt swung onto the ladder, his features relaxed.

Callie stepped toward the roof’s edge, then squatted alongside him as though checking something. “It’s Finch, the building inspector.”

Matt paused his descent and nodded, wondering how the scent of fresh-sawn wood could smell so agreeably new and different to a longtime contractor like himself. Or was it her strawberry-scented shampoo?

“You’re not from around here, but he’s a little high on himself.”

Relief tweaked Matt. She obviously didn’t know he’d grown up here a long time ago. He chalked it up to their four or five year age difference. The old Matt Cavanaugh was best left forgotten, although that wouldn’t be completely possible. He’d messed up big time back then. Now?

Now it was his turn to make things right. Make Grandpa proud. His newfound peace with his half brother and half sister, Jeff and Meredith Brennan, was a good start. Glancing down, he swept the gray truck a quick look. “Overzealous?”

“Bingo. And you can’t let him see you have stuff in the model, that you’re staying here.”

“How did you…? Never mind,” Matt continued.

Of course she’d notice, she lived across the street. His truck had been there all night and his lights were on before 5:00 a.m. “I’ll steer him clear.”

“Five-hundred-dollar fine,” she muttered under her breath. “No contractor wants to waste a cool five hundred.”

She was right. He’d traded off the apartment to save money, not throw it away. He climbed down the ladder, nodded his approval at the scaffolding Matt rigged in front of house number seventeen and stuck out a hand to the inspector. “Matt Cavanaugh. Nice to meet you.”

“Finch McGee.” The guy looked around amiably enough, but Matt hadn’t tap-danced his way through the marines. Friendly snakes were still snakes, and Hank’s daughter had this one nailed. That only made him wonder why, but he’d ferret that out later.

“I examined the initial plan when it came before the zoning commission.” Finch surveyed the half-done houses with a thin-eyed gaze, then rocked back on his heels. “I wanted to give myself an up-to-date visual. You’ve got the copy of town code my assistant gave you?”

The demeaning way he said “assistant” tightened Matt’s skin, but he tamped that down and sent McGee a comfortable look of assent. “Yes. How much leeway do I need with your office to set up inspections?”

“Forty-eight hours should do it. We’re not slammed right now.”

Not slammed? Talk about an understatement. The town had been literally asleep for the past eighteen months. But Matt heeded Callie’s warning and gave in easily. “Forty-eight hours it is.”

“You’ve got Hank Marek helping you?” Finch turned Matt’s way. His approving expression insinuated that having Hank working on this project was some kind of power-hungry badge of glory. “Gutsy.”

“Necessary.” Matt clipped the word, needing to get back to work. “Hank knows this project inside and out. Who better to have on board?”

Finch shrugged. “Just seems funny, but no worse than hanging out in that farmhouse watching this place get ruined.”

“Well, it’s in good hands now,” Matt told him, ready to cut this conversation short. “Mine and Hank’s.” He wasn’t sure why he included the older man in the statement, but realized its truth right off. Despite hard times, Hank Marek was unafraid to put his hand to the task, a guy like Grandpa, tried and true. That kind of integrity meant a great deal to Matt.

“Nice outfit, Callie.”

Matt turned in time to see the wince she hid from McGee as Callie came down the ladder.

McGee’s words pained her, but why would a pretty girl like Callie Marek be hurt by a little teasing? Two thoughts came to mind. Either Callie’d been hurt before or McGee’s words came with a personal tang.

“She’s working for you?”

Matt turned, not liking the heightened interest in McGee’s tone but not willing to make an enemy out of the building inspector who would be signing his certificate of occupancy documents. “Yes, they’re a talented family.”

McGee acknowledged that with a nod as he headed out. “They are. I’ll stop around now and again, see how things are coming along.”

Translation: I’ll stop around now and again to see Callie and maybe find you cutting code.

The latter insinuation didn’t bother Matt. He refused to shirk and never used slip-shod methods in building. That had kept his reputation and business growing heartily in the northern part of the county. Now back home in the southern edge of Allegany County, where teenage bad choices dogged him, he’d be choirboy good to erase those dark stains on his character.

But realizing McGee would be stopping by to check Callie out?

That scorched.

And while Matt knew Callie was off limits, the way his neck hairs rose in protest when Finch McGee eyed her said his heart was playing games with his head. The way she’d faced the decision of crewing with him, upfront and honest, the way her hair touched her cheek, the brown waves having just the right sheen, like newly applied satin-finish paint…

Words weren’t his forte, but feelings…those he got, and since he was fresh out of a relationship with a woman who’d wanted to change every single thing about him, he wasn’t ready to charge head-first into another one, especially in a place where everyone knew his name and all the baggage that went along with it. With an employee. Nope. Wasn’t going to happen for a host of good reasons.

“If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting, too…”

Kipling’s famous poem soothed the angst McGee stirred up, the poem a gift from Grandpa back in the day. Matt had to trust himself. He couldn’t afford mistakes or missteps. He’d already made his share.

“Matt, you wanna cut those sections we removed or have me do it?”

Matt turned, grateful for Buck’s interruption. “Have at it, Buck.”